


rainfall vanitas

by RyeFo



Series: mirror mirror, i'm wrong [1]
Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, aka 1.2k words of eiji sorting through his issues with his dad, and getting advice on how to talk to ash, it's not a huge reference but it is there if you squint, takes place in episode 2 just after charlie talks to eiji and ibe, there's gonna be a part 2 to this dw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 14:34:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30141027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RyeFo/pseuds/RyeFo
Summary: “This boy must’ve done something very kind to trouble you like this.”Eiji draws up his legs and wraps one arm around his knees. “…Very kind.”“I see.”His father has already guessed it’s big. Eiji’s not a good liar, and neither is his father.After Eiji's leap to freedom, he finds himself shackled by uncertainty on how to proceed with Ash. So, like any mature adult, he calls home.
Relationships: Ash Lynx/Okumura Eiji, Okumura Eiji & Okumura Eiji's Father
Series: mirror mirror, i'm wrong [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2218407
Comments: 15
Kudos: 49





	rainfall vanitas

“So? Will you talk to him?”

Ibe’s arm is warm around his shoulders. Charlie’s face is etched with a tentative worry, bracing himself for disappointment. The rest of the world ignores this scene, but the world’s a stage and Eiji’s not used to the spotlight on the ground being on him.

Charlie’s talking of some _trump card_ Ash knows about, how giving it up could be key to their investigation _._ Quite frankly, Eiji could care less about mafia dons and criminal enterprises and all that. He doesn’t _care._ A boy is _dead_ because of their ineptitude, yet nobody’s making Skipper the face of retribution.

Eiji looks down, gaze locked on a crack in the plastic chair next to Charlie. He studies the way that it grows into the brown plastic, bleaching the edges white.

“When do I have to?” Eiji compromises, glancing outside. The clouds are clearing up, at least.

“Ah…” Charlie looks over at the clock. “I’ve got to sort some things out with Jenkins, and they’re still checking over Ash’s vitals and injuries just to be sure he’s alright, so…” He strokes his chin. “Around an hour or so, maybe?”

“Could I make a quick call first? I won’t be too long.”

Ibe raises a brow, but Eiji shakes his head. That warm concern won’t be necessary here.

“I don’t see why not.”

Eiji steps outside.

Here, under the canopy of baby blue, he feels at home. It rained, earlier—there are mirrors all over the place, some shards dripping from the plants sprouting up from the cracked sidewalk. Eiji shatters some of them momentarily as he idly paces before they snap back into shape and show his face in that detail only water can give—always trembling, always stretching, always squeezing.

Most would take advantage of the Wi-Fi to call for free internationally, but this one’s old school. Static-sounding rings almost like a mechanical bird’s song. Eiji’s ringing a loose thread around his finger. Pink, red from the blood that got free of the first bandages.

_“…Hello?”_

Eiji’s voice is in his throat. The voice that answers his call is so _quiet._ He opens his mouth to respond, but it comes out a shaky gust of wind instead.

 _“Eiji?”_ His father’s voice comes through, in gruff and weakened Japanese. Eiji’s heart is in his throat. _“Is that you, Eiji?”_

“I… yes.” Eiji sits on a ledge, ignoring the dampness seeping into his jeans. “It is me, Tou-san.”

 _“Ah…”_ Relief. That’s relief in his voice. Eiji wants to hang up right now. _“I am glad to hear from you. Kaori said you made the journey to America well.”_

Eiji glances at the bandages on his arm, speckled with blood. _America is not like Japan, Eiji,_ his father had told him, weak and crying about the manufactured distance between them. His hand balls into a fist, knuckles bleached white.

“Yeah.”

His toes curl. Two seconds are stolen in the silence.

_“Something is troubling you, Eiji-kun.”_

He can’t help it—Eiji barks out a laugh. “You have not called me that since I was in middle school.”

_“Likewise, you have not laughed in my presence since then.”_

The laughter dies. Eiji locks down. “…There hasn’t been much to laugh about.”

 _“We never spoke about anything warranting laughter._ ”

“You didn’t speak at _all._ ”

More silence. Eiji’s bitter tone is a tailwind. _This was a mistake._ He should throw this phone into the puddles and let it shatter his face.

He should—

 _“You’re right.”_ Eiji’s head snaps up at his father’s voice, his fingers leaving his temples with nail marks grooved into his skin. _“I wasn’t. You took on far too much, trying to keep us all together.”_

Eiji’s mouth hangs agape, but his father continues, voice strong despite his body failing him, and he says, _“but you are calling me now, which shows you need a parent. I know why you won’t talk to your Kaa-san, as much as it pains me. Your sister is far too young for what you need advice on, so… you locked down your own emotions, and called me._ ”

American air is different than in Japan. Everyone is so… boisterous, fourth-coming, blunt. There aren’t dozens of ways to call on someone; here, just the word _you._ He misses home, but he’s… he can’t leave it here, just yet.

His father pushed him here, paid for his ticket with the savings he’d put away for a trip with his mother—a surprise trip before she’d asked for a divorce. Eiji’s father had told Eiji, _America is not like Japan,_ but Japan isn’t like _America,_ either, Eiji’s finding out.

Out here, there’s a bird fluttering in the water. A feather comes loose, drifts close to his feet, to his ankle, to the strain of his failed future.

Eiji swallows and licks his lips. Covers his eyes.

“I… made a friend, here.”

_“Oh? That is surprising. You don’t usually take too well to people that quickly.”_

“Well, he—he did something kind for me.” Eiji takes a breath, slowly exhales. “And, well, he’s, uh. He’s in a bit of trouble because of it. Ibe-san’s friend thinks he can help him, but he won’t let them because of something—bad that happened, and—and they’re asking me to talk to him. And I want to help him, but…”

_“I see. They think that because he helped you, he’ll feel indebted?”_

Something about that assumption makes his stomach turn. “…Yeah.”

Over the phone, Eiji’s father hums to himself. It’s the same habit he had when idly considering what book to translate next for Kaori’s bedtime stories, or what show to tackle to help Eiji learn English.

His father would hum old songs under his breath when spraying the hose over the pavement every morning to clear it of dust and bugs, and when combing Eiji’s mother’s hair into the braids she no longer enjoys.

It reminds him of home, and Eiji bites his lip.

_“This boy must’ve done something very kind to trouble you like this.”_

Eiji draws up his legs and wraps one arm around his knees. “…Very kind.”

 _“I see.”_ His father has already guessed it’s big. Eiji’s not a good liar, and neither is his father. They both know this. It’s genetic.

(“I’m fine,” Eiji would say, refusing to look at his father waste away in that hospital bed.

 _“So am I,”_ his father would reply, weak from that bed, eyes fixated on Eiji’s bandaged ankle, red-bandaged wrists, sullen eyes.)

The sky is almost completely blue, now. Eiji stares up at it.

 _“It seems to me that you want to help this boy, but don’t want him to feel forced._ ” Eiji winces at the accuracy and digs his fingers into his jeans. _“Did he ask you to meet him?”_

“…No.” Eiji sighs. “I’m not sure he wants me there at all.”

 _“Well then, going to him is your choice to make. What you say to him in there will most likely cement his opinion of you._ ”

Wonderful. “That’s not exactly encouraging.”

_“You’re a kind person, Eiji. If this boy is your friend, he must be very kind, too. If he’s refusing help and others are trying to use you as an agent in order to pry that information from him, he’s probably not used to others treating him fairly.”_

Eiji’s brows furrow. _You always were perceptive._

“ _My advice would be: if he does call on you, make sure to meet him where he is. The rest is up to you.”_

Eiji uncurls from his ball, so tightly woven, and straightens his legs. He can hear his father’s breathing getting shallow. But those words… those words are strong. They always have been.

Eiji breathes in the American air and uses it to thank his father in Japanese the best way he knows how to. “I understand.”

_“I know you do.”_

Eiji looks at the clock. “I… I should be going.”

 _“Alright. Take care of yourself, Eiji-kun._ ”

Eiji manages to crack a smile. “Mm. You, too. Give Kaori my love.”

_“I will. And—Eiji?”_

Eiji pauses for a moment. “Yes?”

_“This boy… he is lucky to have you as a friend.”_

Eiji relaxes. “I don’t know about that, yet. We’ll see.”

_“I already do. Be well, Eiji.”_

“Bye, Tou-san.”

The phone clicks off, and Eiji puts it back into his pocket. He bends down, picks up that feather drifting in the puddle, and gazes at it. Grey, specks of blue. Nothing remarkable, yet it found its way here, to New York.

Eiji sticks it in the ground, next to a cluster of forget-me-nots climbing out a crack in the sidewalk, before returning back through the hospital doors.

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is kind of personal to me, so i will ask you don't provide constructive criticism here (aside from spelling errors or grammar mistakes.)
> 
> back in 2019, i lost someone in my family. this person was the one who provided the money who made it possible for me to be able to spend a semester abroad in canada. truthfully, i wasn't as kind to this person as i should have been. every time i saw them, i saw more of them wasting away, and i didn't know how to deal with this. there's no excuse for it, it began when i was 19, ended when i was 22. i was still an adult, as young of an adult i was. truthfully, i never knew how to handle loss, until this experience. i'd never had someone ripped away from me like that, with so much regret, so much awkwardness. eiji's running away from his father's deteriorating state is a mirror of my own experiences. 
> 
> eiji, to me, is a character i am very protective over. many may see this in mayfly, with eiji's story echoing my own. and i know ash may be the fandom's boy, this character with so much angst and sadness--and trust me, i love him too-- but eiji's tragedy to me speaks volumes. echoes in my own life. yoshida once said that she never really liked eiji until the second half, and i disagree. i see the shell of a broken, burnt out kid who's dealing with his mother's betrayals, his sister being too young to understand, and his father's emotional disconnect after realising his own mortality. eiji's story is a neighbour. a person you meet on the street having a bad day. he's all of us, and yet none of us. he has his own story, in each person who writes him.
> 
> maybe that's why he meant so much to ash. because even when he ran, he never stopped /moving/. i plan to have a part 2 to this, eventually, but for now, i hope you enjoyed this story.


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